Afterparty
by impsy
Summary: Shepard and Kaidan have finally reunited after Omega 4, but Kaidan faces his most dangerous challenge yet - meeting the SR2's crewmembers. The chances of surviving... are slim. Shenko; post ME2; follows my "Shepard's Loyalty Mission" series.
1. Shepard and Joker

A direct continuation of my "Shepard's Loyalty Mission" series (Justified, Demigod, Loyalty, Full Disclosure, and Anything), which reunites Shepard and Kaidan post-ME2. Kaidan will be chatting to a different crew member each chapter, and I've already got another fic (or 3) planned to follow this story. Shenko, I wish I could quit you. (That's a lie, I love it too much to ever stop writing it!)

Thanks to Lywnna for reading over this for me, and I hope you all enjoy! :)

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><p>Shepard's hands were shaking. She could stand on her own, but only barely, and Kaidan could tell she wouldn't manage for long. But he also knew her well enough to be sure she wasn't giving up, not while she was still conscious.<p>

She narrowed her eyes and reached up to tuck her hair behind her ears, taking a deep, steadying breath.

"It's not too late to quit, Shepard," he murmured. He desperately wanted to reach out for her, to help her, but at this point, he knew she was past helping. There was nothing he could do.

Her focus on her target was so intense that she didn't give him so much as the smallest glance. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them, took careful aim and fired.

The dart didn't even come close to hitting the dartboard, instead hitting the wall and clattering to the floor far off to one side.

Everyone gathered around started laughing, with Shepard the loudest of all as she stepped back toward Kaidan and leaned on his arm.

"At least she isn't _always _a perfect shot," Joker said, taking another draught of his beer.

"And how long did it take her to get drunk enough to miss?"

"Way longer than I thought it would. Who knew she could hold her liquor so well?"

"Course I can drink," Shepard snorted. "I'm in the Alliance!" She paused, thinking hard for a moment, while Kaidan and Joker exchanged a grin. "'m still in the Alliance, right?"

A glance at Joker, who nodded. "As far as we know."

"Ok. That's good. Can't remember who I yelled at or quit or who fired me anymore."

"You've been doing that a lot lately," Joker agreed. "Easy to get 'em mixed up."

Kaidan smiled and took another sip of his drink. He and Joker had been taking the night fairly easy; he wasn't as young as he used to be, after all. Shepard, on the other hand, had been handed drinks all night, with near-constant toasts and cheers for her health and her skill at bringing everyone back from Omega-4 alive. She hadn't protested much, and the tension in her shoulders had relaxed a great deal, and she hadn't mentioned the Reapers all night.

_She needs some time to forget that the whole galaxy depends on her, even if it's just a little while, _he thought, looking at her smiling face as she chatted with Joker. _She deserves some real downtime, not just an evening off, but who knows when all this Reaper and Cerberus stuff will be done, and she won't let herself really relax until then._

The rest of the crew had been going all-out on the open bar. Nearly all of them, including a couple aliens, were dancing and laughing around the club, which made Shepard smile. She leaned into his shoulder, closing her eyes for a moment as Kaidan looked out at the bar, watching the rest of the crew interact. They all seemed so close, like they trusted each other completely. _Just like we all did on the SR1_, he thought, but he stopped himself there.

Joker followed his gaze, then looked back and grinned at him. "Feeling better about everything?"

"Mostly," he said after a moment's hesitation. "I'm... kind of out of my depth."

Seeing the new crewmembers for the first time had been awkward. Or rather, all of them seeing him. Stepping into the club with a smiling Shepard on his arm, he'd been the recipient of quite a few suspicious glances. Some recognized him, and soon enough whispers were flying. Everyone greeted Shepard warmly, but he heard snippets of quiet conversation as the two of them walked toward the bar, things like "Alliance" and "Horizon" that stressed him further.

"Hey." She slipped an arm around his waist and looked up at him with a drowsy smile that made his heart skip a beat. "Glad you're here."

He reached up to touch her cheek gently. "I'm not going anywhere."

Joker took a long swig of his drink and rolled his eyes. "Don't make me get a crowbar to pry you two apart. Put your girlfriend down, Alenko. I think it's about time you met the in-laws."

An inquiring glance at Shepard, and she smiled and shook her head. "Go. I'll sit down for a minute."

"Yell if you need me, okay?"

She snorted, knowing that was unlikely, but grinned at him to take the sting out as she sat down at a table, where she was quickly joined by a few crew members Kaidan didn't recognize.

"She'll be fine," Joker said, leading him away. "We're the ones that need help. Probably better to meet everybody now, though, so you don't have to walk of shame past a bunch of strangers tomorrow morning."

"Walk of what?"

Joker laughed. "You'll find out. Let's go, Alenko. It's a big crew, and you've got so many crazies to meet and so little time before they're all hammered and homicidal."

_What have I gotten myself into? _he thought, but he followed Joker into the crowd of strangers.


	2. Jacob

And we're back with chapter two! Thanks Lywnna for reading over this for me, Manflurry for harassing me to upload faster, and for the faves/alerts/reviews on chapter one!

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><p>"Hey, Joker! Haven't seen you all night, man, where've you been hiding?"<p>

"I've been busy! Shepard needed a babysitter for a while."

His friend laughed. "She's that bad, huh?"

"Well on her way. She missed the dartboard by about ten feet a few minutes ago."

He whistled. "Damn! Hopefully Chakwas has some Serrice Ice left in the medbay; Shepard might need some hair of the dog tomorrow morning."

"You got that right. Jacob, this is Kaidan. He's been helping me keep an eye on Shepard. Think he's watching her a bit more closely than I am though," he grinned.

He chuckled and held out his hand, which Kaidan took and shook firmly. "Jacob Taylor."

"Kaidan Alenko."

"I'm gonna go get another drink. Want anything?" No one replied, and he started off toward the bar.

_Thanks for the backup, Joker, _he grumbled, but turned back to Jacob. "Nice to meet you, even if Joker's terrible at introductions."

"I think he's bad at pretty much anything involving people," Jacob agreed, but he smiled. "You a friend of Shepard's?"

"We, ah, worked together back on the first Normandy. I was part of her first crew when we stopped Saren and Sovereign. Tali and Garrus were there, too."

"What stopped you from coming along this time?" Kaidan winced slightly at the question, and Jacob laughed. "Touchy subject?"

"Yeah, but it's my own fault. Everything I said on Horizon-"

"Hold up, that was you?" Jacob raised his eyebrows. "The Alliance soldier who told her off? The ex-boyfriend?"

Kaidan couldn't help but laugh at how bluntly Jacob put it. "Thanks for the reminder."

Jacob laughed. "Sorry, man. I heard all about it. Shepard's not big on sharing her personal life, so when all that went down, it was all we talked about for days."

He sighed. "So much for getting to know the crew. After that mess, I doubt any of them will give me a fair shot."

The other man waved a hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it. You know how it is. People talk on a ship 'cause they've got nothing better to do, but they forget about it when there's something new to distract them. And from the looks of things when you walked in, they'll have plenty to talk about."

"Not exactly comforting."

He chuckled. "I can't believe Shepard finally got her Alliance soldier back. I wondered if you were the one she'd been holding out for when you came in together."

"I sure hope I am. Otherwise I've got a nasty surprise waiting for me." Jacob laughed at this, and Kaidan smiled. "So what's your story?"

He shrugged. "Nothing major. I was in the Alliance too, for a while. Was a part of the Corsairs, among other things, then joined up with Cerberus so I could actually get something done. The Illusive Man is a real piece of work, but at least we get results, as I'm sure you heard. I got fed up with the red tape in the Alliance real quick. Shepard puts up with a lot less shit than I do; I don't know how she stuck with them so long. No offense."

"None taken. I agree; the bureaucracy is a nightmare. I've been on the Citadel filling out paperwork and answering the same questions over and over since Horizon. Meanwhile, you managed to destroy the Collectors and get a lot more information on the Reapers, but I think we both know the Alliance won't acknowledge that anytime soon."

"That's the truth. If the Alliance wants to get things done, one of these days they're gonna have to learn how to take risks and just cut to the damn chase instead of sitting around in committee. They're not protecting anyone the way they're doing things now."

Kaidan couldn't help agreeing somewhat. "But is Cerberus really the only alternative?"

"It shouldn't have to be, but right now? Seems that way," Jacob countered. "And they may be bad most of the time, but by funding us, Cerberus did a lot of good."

"Enough to make up for everything they did before?"

"I don't know the extent of most of the things they did," Jacob admitted. "I doubt anybody does but the Illusive Man. I know most of it was real bad. But can't something good just be good, even if it's coming from bad people? They gave us the ship, the credits, the crew, and the resources to destroy the Collector base."

Kaidan took a sip of his drink. He'd come a long way from his knee-jerk reaction on Horizon, and as much as he wanted to hate Cerberus utterly for all the bad things they'd done, he told himself to think more rationally this time. "Shepard made a similar argument to me after Horizon," Kaidan said slowly. "I disagreed with her then, but after all this... I can't really. Not as much, anyway. Cerberus is bad, no doubt about it, but you're right that this was one good act from a group of really horrible people." He shrugged. "As much as I care about her and think she's a brilliant commander, I still think Shepard's 'charge in, get details later' way of solving problems isn't the way, either. We need some kind of middle ground here."

"We need the Alliance to get off their asses and recognize the problem," Jacob said.

"And we need people like you and Shepard back with us to show them how."

"Doubt they'd like that."

"Probably not, but it'd be good for them. Not much I can do on my own. Strength in numbers and all. I was a lieutenant when I served with Shepard on the original Normandy and saw everything they put her through, but I still thought getting promoted would help. Of course things just got worse."

"Hard to remember people actually outrank Shepard," Jacob chuckled.

"Well, I didn't always. Made things a little awkward on the SR1."

Jacob laughed. "You'll have to tell me that story sometime."

"Don't let him tell it without me," Joker said, returning with another drink in hand. "He'll leave out all the best parts."

"This I've gotta hear."

"You're gonna love this. We all figured out – well, I figured out, and everyone heard from me – that the two of them were into each other, but all they did was make big puppy eyes at each other and blame Alliance regulations for not getting together."

"What, just because she outranked you?"

"She was my commanding officer!" Kaidan protested. "I didn't know what to do. Getting court-martialed isn't exactly high on my list of priorities, and I didn't know how to show her I was- interested, without a solid right hook to the jaw and a dishonorable discharge when I got out of the hospital. Falling for her was more complicated than it sounds."

"I think he was just too scared to make a move," Joker told Jacob in a stage whisper.

Kaidan chuckled. "Shepard _is _pretty intimidating. And okay, we complained a lot about the regulations, and since all you did on the ship was eavesdrop, I can see how you got sick of it," he grinned. "But what else was I supposed to do, just kiss her?"

They both looked as if it was perfectly obvious. "Yep." "That sounds about right."

"What, so we should just broadcast everything to the whole crew?"

"Hate to break it to you buddy, but everybody knew long before the two of you did," Joker laughed.

"I've got no chance of winning here, do I?"

"Nope!" Joker said cheerfully. He looked thoughtful for a second, then his eyes lit up. "How about this? If you kiss Shepard tonight in front of everybody, we'll quit giving you crap about being a wuss on the SR1 _and _apologize for it. Deal?"

He raised his hands in protest. "That doesn't seem fair. I haven't even met anyone except Jacob yet, and I'm sure everyone's suspicious of me after Horizon anyway. So you want me to alienate everybody even more?"

"No, I want you to man up and show everybody why Shepard likes you so damn much!" Joker laughed.

"Sorry Kaidan, but remember what I said," Jacob added, sounding sympathetic. "Everybody already knows about you two. Or at least assumes. If they didn't hear about you after Horizon or from Joker gossiping about the SR1, they figured it out when you came in here holding hands."

"Like goddamn teenagers." Joker rolled his eyes.

"So I say, you might as well go for it."

"We'll see. No promises. It's Shepard's crew and friends; I'm just a visitor. I don't want to do anything to make her look bad in front of them."

"Showing that Shepard's happy is an easy way to make everybody like you," Jacob advised. "Nobody'll fault you for before when they see that."

Kaidan smiled at this, and he raised his glass for a toast. "To Shepard," he said. "Both for saving our lives and for making them way more complicated."

"To Shepard."


	3. Mordin

Apologies for the long wait on this chapter, I went on vacation and things were a bit hectic with work. :) The next one is almost done, I'll try to get it done soon since next month is NaNoWriMo! Once the website has the Writing Buddies enabled, anyone else who's Nano-ing this year should friend me, I'll be writing as "impsythealmighty." Good luck to everyone going for 50,000 words, and everybody else, I hope you enjoy this chapter! Thanks for reading!

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><p>"So what'd you think of Jacob?" Joker asked as they continued making their way around the club. The music wasn't blaring quite as loud as usual; Kaidan suspected that Shepard had asked it to be kept at a level where everyone could still chat without shouting.<p>

"Seemed like a good guy. Smart, too. I bet he was a lot of help during your mission, too. I wish he could've stayed in the Alliance, but I can't blame him for leaving. He's not the type to sit around in meetings talking about how to save people when he could be out there actually doing it."

"I can't blame _anybody _for leaving the Alliance," Joker grinned, "but I know what you mean. He's like Shepard that way. And Garrus." Joker looked thoughtful for a moment. "Actually pretty much the whole crew this time around. Everybody's so independent and tortured and terrible at taking orders. It's a miracle they all work together so well."

"That's Shepard for you. I can't believe the SR1 didn't fall apart, and the crew back then was a little more..."

"Sane?"

"Relaxed," he said, trying to be tactful. "Don't scare me off everybody too bad; I've only met one of the squad members so far."

"Well here's your chance." Joker nodded toward a salarian clad in a scientist's lab coat standing near the windows. "That's Mordin. He's been on the squad the longest other than Jacob and Miranda, but the Illusive Man assigned those two to our team, so he's the first one Shepard actually recruited."

"He looks like a scientist. Does he just stay on board the SR2?"

"Nope. He's got a lab, sure, but he's on the away squad, too. You do _not _want to mess with him. Or his patients. When we first met him, he was defending his clinic from gangs during a plague. On Omega."

Kaidan blanched at the thought and looked a little closer. The scientist had a scarred face and one horn broken off – the scars alone were enough to show that he wasn't at all like most of the other salarians he'd met. Though he seemed calm enough at the moment, a little smile on his face as he watched everyone else interacting, Mordin had definitely earned his place in Shepard's elite team.

"He's a genius, but... a little out there. Not that _that's _a surprise, with this crew. Jacob's the most normal one of the bunch, believe it or not. But I'll let you get to know Mordin for yourself."

Kaidan narrowed his eyes at his friend. "I thought you were going to introduce me to everyone, but you're running off every chance you get. I need backup!"

"That argument might work on a _nice _person, but I'm in this for laughs. Good luck buddy."

He sighed, but stood up straight and approached the salarian with as much confidence as he could muster. "Hello, I'm-"

"Kaidan Alenko, yes?" he asked, and Kaidan started in surprise, then nodded, and the salarian held out his hand and smiled at him. "Mordin Solus. Scientist. Nice to officially meet you. Lots of rumors on the ship about you and Shepard. Not that I listen. Too much work to do. Not interested in gossip."

"I think you're just about the only one," Kaidan replied, reaching out to shake the salarian's hand firmly. "Pleasure to meet you too. I've heard you're a genius."

Mordin looked pleased. "Exaggeration. But appreciated. Did come up with a way to protect crew from Collectors' seeker swarms, though. Proud of that one. Other things, not so much."

"Well that one was damned impressive. We could have used that kind of protection on Horizon." He tried not to sound wistful, but he couldn't help thinking of the few friends he'd made on the colony – friends that even Shepard had been unable to save.

"You were assigned there?"

Kaidan inclined his head. "Unfortunately. If it wasn't for me..." he trailed off, but couldn't help continuing the thought. _If I hadn't gone there, they might all still be alive._

The salarian nodded thoughtfully. "Was our first opportunity for field testing. Had finished product just before Illusive Man told us about imminent Collector attack. No time to distribute it to civilians beforehand. Results when faced by so many in the swarm, unpredictable, unknown. Fortunate that it worked." He paused to take a breath, the first one Kaidan had seen him take. "Heard about the colony. Sorry for loss of life."

He nodded, not trusting his voice. He'd told Shepard before that you can't ever get used to seeing dead civilians, and now he knew how much worse it was when you were the one in charge. He had a feeling they were going to need each other's support more than ever in the coming months.

Mordin tilted his head and looked at Kaidan with open curiosity. "Heard the Collectors went to Horizon to get Shepard through someone important. You, yes?"

He winced. "You heard right. What happened to everyone there... I was supposed to protect them, and they were all taken and killed anyway."

"Not your fault. Not Shepard's fault, either. Blame Illusive Man. Leaked your location to make sure the Collectors would find you, attack, bring Shepard there. Backfired, of course. For everyone. Collectors destroyed by Shepard, and Shepard furious with Illusive Man. Lost her trust."

"I can't believe you all work with him," Kaidan said, shaking his head. "Especially all you non-humans. Putting so much faith in a pro-human group like Cerberus... They might not be terrorists, but they're damn close, and the kind of people they work with usually aren't as noble as Shepard is."

"Not working with him anymore." Mordin's eyes twinkled. "Had a feeling we wouldn't be forever, not with Shepard in charge. Can't believe he didn't see it coming. Thankfully, in the past. Lots to look forward to now."

"Like the Reapers on their way?" he asked, wincing.

Mordin smiled at Kaidan's grimace, and the expression was a bit unsettling. "Not excited for destruction. But opportunities for study, advancement of technology, chance to fight, rallying of various species against one enemy... Looking forward to it."

Kaidan nodded slowly. "I guess, if you think about it that way. But we're gonna have a hell of a time stopping them, and I'm worried about what will happen to everybody else while we work on that. And who knows if we'll all make it through?"

"Shepard, though. Won't be a problem for her. You know this, of course," the salarian grinned.

"I hope so. If anyone can stop them, it's her."

"Absolutely. Nothing Shepard can't do. Will have to tell you about our visit to Tuchanka later. You're staying with her."

Mordin had phrased it as a statement, and it took Kaidan a moment to realize that the last sentence was actually a question. "Oh. Uh. I'm not sure. I think so. I mean, we haven't really discussed it, but-"

"Understood. Recent reunion, uncertain relationship status, years since last chance for physical intimacy. Makes things awkward."

_And that didn't help either, _Kaidan thought, trying very hard not to bolt.

"Sure you'll find out what she wants soon. Shepard terrible at hiding her emotions. Expecting to see you on the ship tomorrow. Have an office there. Not just scientist. Also a doctor, if needed." Mordin's dark eyes sparkled in amusement.

"Uh. Thanks. I think."

"Not a problem, Alenko. Go meet the others. Will be around, can talk later."

Kaidan tried not to run at the dismissal, but he still almost crashed into Joker getting away from the salarian as quickly as he could.

"I take it that didn't go so well?"

"It was fine until he started asking if I was staying with Shepard and using the phrase 'physical intimacy."

"Oh God," Joker laughed. He handed him a drink, and Kaidan took a long, thankful gulp. "How about we let you talk to someone a little less prone to awkward questions?"

"That'd be great."


End file.
